Traci Lords

Quick Facts

PUBLISHED01 Feb, 2018

Traci Lords is a hugely popular and controversial American actress. She is a former porn star and became notorious when law authorities unearthed the fact that she had acted in adult movies before attaining the legal age. As a result of this scandal, large number of movies featuring Lords had to be withdrawn costing a huge amount of money to the Adult movie industry.

After departing from the adult entertainment industry, Lords ventured into mainstream acting. She has featured in a number of movies and TV series. She also has a successful music career to her credit, with one of her hit singles earning double platinum from the RIAA. Lords also published her autobiography which made it to the New York Times best sellers list.

PERSONAL LIFE:

Traci Lords was born as Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968, in Ohio. Her parents were Jewish Immigrants. Her paternal side was from Ukraine and maternal side was from Ireland. Lords has three siblings and was raised in a working class environment. Her father was abusive and an alcoholic. Her parents divorced when she was young and for most of her childhood, the actor lived with her grandmother. Traci has been married thrice. She married her third husband Jeff Lee in 2002. She has a son with her third husband and currently lives in Los Angeles.

CAREER:

Lords’ first venture into the adult industry began when she discovered she was pregnant at the age of 15. She wanted money for the abortion and picked up a lot of odd jobs, one being a driver with a fake license, the license mentioned her age as 22. With this ID, she auditioned and landed a nude photoshoot. She eventually ended up posing for a lot of adult magazines. It was then that she was discovered by Penthouse and was asked to model for them. She chose her stage name Traci Lords after one of the characters in her favorite TV show. Eventually, Lords began to act in adult movies.

In 1986, after her 18th birthday, news surfaced about her true age; this led to the arrest of the owners of her movie agency and she was taken into custody. Subsequently all her movies were withdrawn and Traci was even accused of tipping the authorities to gain immunity. After this fiasco, Traci went into therapy. She rediscovered herself and began to study method acting. She made her debut in mainstream cinema with “Not of this Earth”.

She eventually acted in a few more movies and pursued a modelling career as well. Lord acted as the lead in “Epicenter” and “Chump Change”. Her role in the romantic comedy “Chump Change” earned her the “Film Discovery Jury Award” for Best Actress at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. In 1992, Traci debuted as a musician by singing the lead for "Love Never Dies" for the movie Pet Cematary Two. She also released an album titled “1000 fires” which garnered positive reviews. Traci has also appeared in reality show “Celebrity wife swap” and several other TV shows.